Wayward Hunters
by Philo Vance
Summary: Cursed beasts roam throughout Europe and the only ones able to stop them are a group of young wizards trained by Harry Potter himself. Arguably as beastly as their prey, Harry Potter's hunters are a source of admiration, fear and resentment.
1. The Living Relic

Harry Potter was a relic, was my dear Headmaster.

I'm aware the term "relic" might be lacking somewhat in the humble admiration we are supposed to extend to our elders. Yet the memories we retain of our headmasters are few and powerful. To a young man or woman of eighteen—the usual age one joined Vyzerworth—headmasters hold the unenviable position of being our master's master, and therefore presumably twice as capable of locking us up in a dungeon should we not learn how to hunt down beasts.

In my time, we regarded him as something between a legend and a disappointment. His bright white beard and the loud, creaky sounds that accompanied his wheelchair made him something of a figure out of an old painting, never more than a moment away from appearing behind you and uttering your new nightmare for the next couple nights, nightmares that would never realize because you would find out—though you would never be able to convince yourself of it entirely—he was a truly kind old man who seemed frightened by his own legend.

Harry Potter would always smile when he watched the hallways he was so proud of, offering help to those who needed it the least and appearing blissfully ignorant of the ones too timid to ask for it. It is perhaps important to mention that the man's kindness, though commendable, was not the driving force of his fragile body. That was something else that we could not often place but could easily curse. He would look at us in disdain when we acted concerned about him thinking of grabbing his old Firebolt out for one last flight, as if we were being silly brats for worrying so much. Then Lord Velice, the healer, looked at _us_ with a stare conveying he held us responsible for his behavior.

I would dare say that is the type of memory we hold of our dear Headmasters after schooling. Their legends often take place before our births and we can hardly remember what evil sorcerer they vanquished and which frozen volcano they fenced atop of. And so, we instead remember the times they thought, "Ah, well, what harm can that do?" like we all do before attempting something foolish.

If this was how I felt about him—and indeed it was—then I could not begin to imagine how current students would feel about him, a good few years after my time. Vyzerworth's location was hardly common knowledge, but I was armed with an eternity. My journey first took me to Diagon City, through Hogsmeade, near the Durmstrang ruins, all the way to my poetical final destination of Hogwarts.

To say that information of this was hidden from the public would be an understatement, but the castle's ghosts were surprisingly helpful. Not because they could see me—a fact that filled me with fragile hope—but because they were uncontrollable gossips at the top of the castle where they thought no person might see them. It took me what I assume must have been a couple years to fully put together what they meant, but I eventually came upon a very complete picture of what had happened.

Each year, four men and four women graduating from Hogwarts were offered the chance to further their studies at Vyzerworth, whereupon they would learn to hunt beasts. Once, this offer was something to consider carefully; the undead beasts were many and the means to hurt them were few, killing curses unable to kill that which was already dead.

Nowadays, however—and this matched my own recollection of the matter—the beasts were few, the risks fewer, and the opposite could be said about the position's. A combination of wealth, respect and the ever alluring ability to evade adult life for a couple more years attracted students like little else did.

"I will not announce your grades yet." Lockhart spoke in an almost singing, enthusiastic tone that left no doubt he was not finished speaking. "Rather, I will offer you a choice. You may stick with whatever grades you have now, if you're confident in your exam performance. Or!" He declared this alternative with a thunder, striking his cane against the floor. "You may attempt to improve your grade by duelling me."

Had I possessed anything sacred to hold dear, I would swear by it here that Master Lockhart nonchalantly drew a sword at the crowd of students. So fluent was his motion—and so unexpected his action—that the crowd could do nothing but take a step back in a fearful sort of awe before he had transfigured his cane into a sword and lunged at them.

It would have been a shameful display of cowardice by the class, but Elle Atwood was never much for crowds anyhow.

The young woman mirrored their examiner's actions, tossing a stick forward and transfiguring her own Hogwarts cane into an épée, holding it diagonally pointing down towards where Lockhart's wrist would have been had he not stopped his lunge.

Elle's grin was curious one—it was not merely arrogant, it was egotistical. It was the grin of somebody who knew and was quite fond of how she was hated. After a moment holding her blade in that same stance, she cleared her throat, whereupon Lockhart smiled, retreating back to _En Garde_ and giving a courteous bow filled with flair.

"What are the rules for this challenge, professor?" Elle asked, a sort of sportsmanlike taunt in her tone as she bent her knees slightly and gave a few stabs at the air as though in preparation for something.

"I'm not your professor until you have entered Vyzerworth's gates, Miss Atwood!" he declared in a loud, booming voice. He took a step backwards, maintained the tip of his blade at the girl for a second, then dropped his blade to his side. "Though I suppose there is little point in pretending you weren't already accepted. It is old fashioned to pretend that some of us aren't more talented than others. A thing of the distant past."

Following tradition made you somewhat of a relic these days, and as such it was almost fashionable. The crowd of students was a well-behaved one, if only because of the dullness of the surprise. An admittance into Vyzerworth was a dream for many and a reality for few—yet this sudden fortune for Elle felt less of a lottery and more of a long expected inheritance. You would have needed to go back nearly seven years to understand it.

Lockhart tossed a badge at her—a scarlet shield with black swords carved on top of it. One had to present it to the conductor before being allowed in the Vyzerworth Express, I had learned.

"I believe it is also old fashioned to believe that the pupil must always be weaker than the master, professor Lockhart. I look forward to the day we get to have a real duel." Perhaps even being present as she grew up wouldn't have been enough to understand how she grew into what she did, but you would have, if nothing else, shared the dull surprise that comes with seeing her outdo her peers.

I can still see her during sorting: timidly sitting on the little empty stool at the centre of everyone's gazes, under that beautiful false sky. Up until the end of her second week, she would not dare look anyone in the eye for fear of offending them. Yet she was placed in Gryffindor, at a simple request.

The conversation between Sorting Hat and student are one of the few privacies a young girl of eleven can ask for, but—it shames me to say—I'm fond of violating this. Before passing down judgement, I ask whoever stumbles upon this to consider themselves in my position. Suppose yourself invisible to even the ghostlier of spirits, for long enough that your own name escapes you. Now suppose that you notice, after a minute or a year, that some younglings have the habit of mouthing off what they are thinking since nobody can hear them—well? Would you not be a little curious as to whether you could predict where the hat would sort them into?

Should you be more virtuous than me, feel free to skip the next couple lines lest you be shamed with knowledge you do not wish for. For the others, you will want to know that young Elle informed the hat that she wished for nothing more than a chance to prove herself without the help of any other. I do not know what the hat replied, but I recall her frowning face and her saying, "Being the best because you had help is the same as admitting you're not good enough!" Her voice shook, her lips trembled, but her eyes burned with the courageous intensity of a youngling who hates her own fear.

The Sorting Hat contorted then in what I thought was a sort of smile and proclaimed her as part of Gryffindor. The young girl had wanted nothing more than a chance to find out how far she could go were she to give it an honest effort, and surprised everyone—especially herself—when she saw that she could go very far indeed. With every rival conquered, she also conquered herself, up until the shy, quiet girl seemed like a distant memory to many.

"Come on!" Elle declared, spinning around to face her fellow students. "Does anybody have a problem with this? I will duel anybody who thinks I don't belong in Vyzerworth. You can have my spot if you beat me!"

A couple heads turned to Lockhart, who frowned and muttered in a corner before lifting his head in a familiar smile and shrugging. "I will enforce those terms. Anybody capable of beating Miss Atwood in a duel will be accepted into Vyzerworth."

Not a single student moved forward.

"You can't be serious!" It was less a taunt and more a plea. "Some of you have to know you didn't pass the exam by now!" Curiously, her words appeared then to have robbed her peers of the fighting spirit she attempted to foster. Upon noticing this, Elle loudly stomped her feet, but this too evoked no reaction. "Don't you want to study in Vyzerworth? Isn't that why we're in this room? And you're telling me that even someone like you—"

Elle cut herself off bringing her finger at the students' general direction, and only after a pause did she seem to find herself a target. "Gwen, you most of all!" Her booming threat had the sound of a prepared speech, as if she had rehearsed it many times before. Yet there was little doubt in anyone's mind she had picked the first person she locked eyes with. "After that gross attempt at dueling the exam beast, you really think you have a chance to enter Vyzerworth?"

Under normal circumstances, Gwen measured at about the height of Elle's neck. Under a stressful challenge, the young Ravenclaw barely seemed as tall as the other's chest. Yet, she managed a surprisingly loud, "I transfigured my cane successfully—" before the other interrupted her.

"You managed to transfigure your cane! My, that is positively impressive. You think a beast would rip his jaw out of his mouth and bow down to you in awe of your transfiguration abilities? If you can't _hunt_ a beast, you are useless."

"I _can_ hunt a beast just fine! That time my nerves just—"

"Then prove it!" Elle screamed excitedly. She leaped back into the _En Garde_ position and smiled, her épée still in hand. "Be your infernal logical self when it actually matters! If you have no chance to get into Vyzerworth anyway, why not take the one in a million gamble and fight me?"

The well-behaved crowd had its limits, the challenge bringing about the shuffling of feet ,whoops, whistles and murmurs. Occasional bursts of laughter were overshadowed by louder whispers of concern; even a skilled wizard would be most fortunate to leave a duel against Elle without injury. The implication that Gwen was less than skilled hung in the air quite heavily then, and even the most timid of girls have their own quiet pride. Her lips trembled for a second, and upon any oath you might impose on me I would hold that the Ravenclaw's lips trembled and her wrist twisted toward her wand for a second. Yet, after a moment her fingers closed under her thumb without further emotionality.

"I won't take that gamble because it's not one in a million. My chance of beating you is _zero._ " To Gwen's credit, her voice was frank, but not meek. "That is hardly tempting."

Elle's face had not yet turned to disappointment before Gwen went on, "I have a much better chance against Professor Lockhart."

Lockhart's first thought then, he told me much later, was that it was refreshing for his ego that he was made relevant in that room once more. Though Elle was his favorite student, he still wished for the stage to be his, and this sudden attention rejuvenated him—he felt nearly forty again, alert, youthful, excited, and not particularly astonished by Gwen's sword tip pointing at his chest.

His next thought, a bad one, was the unsettling revelation that his students thought him weak. "Pardon?" he grunted. "You think your Master weaker than your peer?"

"No. I think you kind, Master Lockhart." There was no mocking in Gwen's tone. "I think that, faced against a failure's desperate last resort…you would not fight to win. Not immediately. I think you would go easy, to make this failure of a student think that perhaps they didn't have to be so ashamed of themselves. That kindness—" Gwen nodded toward Elle"—is not something I'd expect from her."

It was not something anyone expected from her. Elle grinned, hands behind her head and leaning lazily against a wall. Though I cannot be certain, it was likely that all Hufflepuffs in the room were thinking of their last encounter with her on the Quiddich pitch, where Elle humiliated them immediately after their captain's heartfelt dedication of the game to his recently deceased mother. Sentimentality was not part of sportsmanship, she declared.

"Gwen, your grades are more than good enough for a normal job with the ministry. Heck, you can probably even become an auror if you want, there's absolutely no reason to make a fool of yourself here." It was Avan who spoke then, a serious young man who would have benefited from any Master other than Lockhart. "Just quit!"

"No, I have to do this!"

At this point, a short, heated argument between the two came to pass. Many questions were repeated, with the same answer flung back right at them. It felt awkward—to me and to many others—to witness the boy insist he knew best while the timid girl shook her head and desperately tried not to "Do what you want. I'll be there for you if you need comforting later." Avan stormed out of the room then, but not before cursing under his breath.

"He did not even wait to see his own results," Lockhart noted in an annoyed tone. "Will somebody tell the boy he passed the exam? I would go after him myself, but, well…" The Vyzertworth Master bent his knees, magical épée in hand. "To five points." Gwen mirrored his actions—too closely for it not to be intentional. "We both use swords, then? I would have expected you to be the wand type, Miss Hart." No invitation was necessary for Elle to approach the two from the side and appoint herself as overseer of the duel. The crowd whispered again, some mild laughter mixed with concerned voices.

" _En garde. Prêt. Allez_!"

To everyone's surprise, Gwen recklessly advanced twice before attempting a lunge to the hand. Lockhart was surprised, but not enough he couldn't safely retreat, though the distance between the two was smaller now. Gwen recovered forward from her lunging stance and lunged again, which Lockhart again opted to retreat from, and which again reduced the distance between the two. Rather than recover, this time Gwen took advantage of her bent knees to explosively leap at her Master in a speedy flèche.

Lockhart was a fool in many ways, but Harry Potter would not have put up with him if he could not hold his own in a duel. Raising his sword at eyelevel for a high-line parry, he took her blade and guided it to the side and above his shoulder before taking a step forward with his back foot and gently touching her stomach with the tip of his blade in a _prime_ parry.

"Halt," declared Elle. "Zero, one."

"Had I gone through with it, you would be dead, my dear," Lockhart said kindly. "Would you like to stop? In a real match against a beast duelist, you would be dead. Fight me as if you were fighting a beast…unless you'd like to stop."

Gwen retreated back quickly as though she were dodging his attack rather than being allowed to walk away. "No, sir. Thank you, but I want to keep going."

Lockhart smiled wryly at that. He would tell me later, he felt less inclined to offer his student kindness after that last move. A duel was a match of wits as much as a match of blades, if not more. Sudden attacks, while successful, were discouraged due to their high risk—you only have one life, after all. To allow a student with such a style to volunteer to fight beasts…it was akin to murder in his eyes.

The next point was more strategic, but it was too late to earn the Master's sympathy. Gwen attempted a blade extension at the high _quarte_ line, but it was beaten aside. She repeated the extension, then exploded into a lunge switching into the high _sixte_ line. Her blade had gone under Lockhart's, but rather than being fooled her Master held it high and diagonally pointing at her, so that her own momentum caused the blade to enter her arm. A perfect stop-hit.

"I must insist—fight me as if your life depended on it, Miss Gwen!"

There was much astonishment at the great flowing of blood, jutting from her forearm and into the floor. It was not a deep wound, but from a half-supressed cry and the way she fell to her knees, it was clear the woman was not used to pain. "Halt. Zero, two." Elle's face turned to the disdainful expression she went to in absence of sympathy. "Gwen, I may have encouraged you to do this, but this is embarrassing. Quit now."

Gwen shook her head wordlessly, keeping her lips sealed tight as though not doing so would force her to let out a terrible scream. At this, Elle only shrugged. " _En garde. Prêt. Allez_!"

This time Gwen attempted a light touch to the hand—it was too conservative an attack, and Lockhart deflected it with his bell guard. The resulting impact threw Gwen awkwardly off her guard, allowing the Master to easily find a line between his blade and her right shoulder. This time there was no blood—but the mistake was humiliating enough, and the laughter coming from a couple students seemed to sting more.

"Halt. Zero, three."

"Picture yourself in a fight against a beast!" Lockhart roared. "A beast in the shape of a man appears in a dark street at night. He draws his sword made of the bones of your friends and attacks you like I did. Show me what you'd do!"

The fourth point was over as soon as it started. Gwen's earlier mistakes dulled her initiative, and Lockhart took advantage of this to beat her sword aside and go in deep with a lunge to the right forearm. It was minimally damaging, but it was enough to make Gwen drop her swords and fall to the floor. "Halt. Zero, four." The persistent laughter from one dark haired student seemed of particular bad taste now—others seemed uncomfortable to laugh as the injuries piled up.

"You did your best," Lockhart attempted kindly. "You can quit now."

"No!" Despite her best efforts, Gwen could not keep her voice from cracking. With what seemed to be a gargantuan effort, she let out a dry, "Please. Just one more point."

Despite his concerns for her injuries, Lockhart nodded. Sportsmanship was not his forte, but it was common knowledge that since his stay with Velice he had—and no one who wished for a good grade should ever say so out loud—adopted a decidedly old fashioned understanding of pride. He clearly intended to draw blood before he could draw tears, for the sake of her dignity.

" _En garde."_ Elle paused momentarily, glancing at her barely upright classmate. " _Prêt. Allez_!"

Lockhart closed in the distance quickly before launching himself in a flèche. To his surprise, Gwen managed an awkward high-line parry, quickly enough to avoid being hit by the blade but not quickly enough to avoid being hit by Lockhart's shoulder and tossed to the ground. Lockhart, who did not fall, took only a second to regain his balance and extend his arm at her back.

It was then that she spun around, wand in hand, and screamed, " _Expelliarmus!"_

Had he expected the move, Lockhart could have easily parried the spell with his blade. It was what Vyzerworth taught above all else, after all. Yet he did not expect it, and his sword flew out of his hand. Bouncing his right foot off the wall, Lockhart caught his sword midair but heard another, " _Expelliarmus!"_ and a jet of light came out of Gwen's wand.

This time, Lockhart did parry the attack. The Master's feet had yet to touch the ground when his blade clashed against the jet of light and moved it past his right shoulder. Yet the movement was to sudden and thus too wide, the parry bringing Lockhart's blade so far to his right that Gwen found a perfect opening to flèche at his _quarte_ line. The blade barely hit him, but it unquestionably drew a small amount of blood.

"Halt. One, four," Elle announced, quite proudly too.

"You're counting that? She used her wand!" Lockhart screamed indignantly. "Her wand!"

"You told her to fight as if was fighting an actual beast…and there are wizards who use wands together with their weapon of choice," Elle said. "Not everyone sticks to one or the other."

"To the next point," Lockhart growled. "To the next!"

Exhaustion, pain and embarrassment were such that Gwen could neither celebrate her point nor defend her choice of strategy. She did not stop gasping for air until Elle said, " _En garde. Prêt. Allez_!"

This time, it was Lockhart who moved as though he were fighting a real beast. Without holding back, he leaped in, encircled Gwen's blade and delivered a furious lunge, first a feint to her shoulder then switching lines to her leg, drawing more blood than before and sending her backwards as she screamed in pain.

"Halt. One, Five," Elle said bitterly. To Lockhart's credit, he seemed positively disgusted with himself.

"Do you need help to see the Heale—" he started, before Gwen herself interrupted him.

"No, I—thank you for your attention professor. It was a valuable lesson…not that I'll need it again in the future…but thank you…I'm sorry for wasting your time. "Gwen attempted to rise to her feet, but after a single step forward her injured leg gave out and she fell flat on her face. Immediately afterwards, the injured girl awkwardly hurried herself off the room in a desperate limp, laughter from the same dark haired witch behind her back. Upon witnessing this, Elle stepped toward the laughing woman.

Hereupon I must confess my sin: I am quite indecisive. My first reaction was to stay and watch Elle's confrontation with the dark haired woman. A moment later I decided I wanted to see what happened with Gwen, and I hurried after her. Again I changed my mind, and made my way back to the classroom. Finally, I opted toward following Gwen, having delayed my decision enough that even with that terrible limp she managed to outrun me.

I found her, hours later, sitting by the lake. Though this was a long time after, her eyes were still bright red and she still breathed quite heavily. Occasionally, when tears came out, she would bring both hands to her face as though trying to force them back into her eyes. "I'm useless…Avan was right…I shouldn't have tried."

"You're not useless. Given the circumstances, your move was excellently executed."

Even I—ghostlier than any spirit—had not heard the old man come in. One minute he wasn't there, the other he was sitting beside her, close enough to reach out with his arm and grab her. Instinctively, Gwen moved away from him, but the old man paid no mind. "You are just as bit as talented as your friends, Miss Hart."

"I am _not._ There's no pointing in pretending that. I only scored one point on Master Lockhart, and I had to cheat for it."

"Is that so? Be that as it may…" The old man tossed a scarlet badge at her, and she caught it before it fell. "I still want to see what you can do in Vyzerworth. I think all youngsters have the same amount of talent…with different ways to apply them."

With a smirk, the old fashioned old man climbed back onto his wheelchair, not bothering to look at the girl's expression. In the dark, even I could not tell if it was amusement or fear that he had left her with. Before he left, Gwen managed through her surprise to say, "But sir, it is old fashioned to pretend some of us aren't better than others."

He responded with a simple smile before wheeling away.

Harry Potter was a relic, was my dear Headmaster.


	2. Vyzerworth

A curious set of circumstances made it so nobody questioned Gwen's acceptance into Vyzerworth. It was hardly a secret that—in spite of rapid improvements around her sixth and seventh Hogwarts years—Gwen was not particularly gifted in the blade or the wand. And the peers she left behind, trained in both and more since birth, could have easily raised valid objections about her selection. But those same peers, the only witnesses to her duel with Lockhart, were also young men and women who were not entirely opposed to celebration.

You will, no doubt, anticipate what happened.

Elle Atwood, it hardly needed to be said, was immensely disliked by her peers. Perhaps this is too optimistic a description; her peers _tried_ to hate her. Yet in spite of her fantastic arrogance, the girl was friendly enough to anybody who greeted her in a hallway, and the human nature is such that many tolerated her thinking that if nothing else there was some use in having talented friends.

It helped that by nine she was always down by the Room of Requirement—which she had long converted into a clandestine tavern—claiming to buy everybody the drinks the room had supplied her with. The night the Vyzerworth representatives were selected was different only in that she requested more extravagant drinks and seemed merrier than usual.

By the time Gwen arrived at the clandestine tavern, everybody else was nearly drunk or nearly dead. "Drink up, underdog!" Elle leaped at the girl, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "I told you before, did I not? You would either drink to forget or drink to celebrate. Only difference is the quality of the alcohol. And you deserve the best here!"

"I don't want to drink, I…" Gwen trailed off under the drunken stare of her classmates. A couple hours passed and their recollection of her questionable hit against Lockhart became more and more unlikely by the drink. When morning came, the group had settled—and thinking themselves honest at that—on a heroic tale where Gwen had grit her teeth through blood loss in a final, prideful, roar of a lunge that astounded the famed beast hunter.

The solitary voice of dissent with this version of events was one of the two people missing at the tavern, Clover. Yet none paid much mind to her complaints, her scuffle with Elle over her mockery of Gwen was well known by now, and the matter was settled just like that.

Gwen herself was mildly uncomfortable at all of this, I could tell. Her cheeks blushed a shade of red not entirely unlike the kind she bled in the duel people often praised her for. This was not to say she raised an objection against that version of events or indeed any objection at all. In the years I followed this young lady she hardly met anyone's eyes and rarely said anything. She was the type that only smiled when nobody—that she could see—was around and offered a sort of friendly half smirk to everyone else.

Fortunately, Elle took the brunt of everybody's distaste after a number of drunken insults to everybody's honor coupled with a proclamation of superiority or seven and, well, there's only so much displeasure one can voice out before giving up on the day. Everyone quickly forgot about Gwen's mysterious rise and all awkwardness was well settled for almost eleven hours. Indeed, had Lockhart not insisted to meet up with Gwen, the matter would have been completely settled then.

"I must apologize for my deplorable behavior from before," Lockhart appealed, taking her right hand between both of his and shaking it profusely pre-emptively thanking her for a presumed forgiveness. "I should not have lunged as I did. I, ah, am most sorry for it. But we can all grow from our mistakes, yes?"

"It seriously wasn't your fault, professor. It was a duel. It was my…in any case, I really should get going, I need to write a letter to my parents and—"

Lockhart raised a finger to her mouth, smiling. I confess myself as unnerved then as Gwen herself, and the feeling did not lessen when the man pulled a pile of galleons and wrapped her tiny hand around them. Money changes value every decade and I could not pretend to know how much that was worth myself, but I'd wager on a large amount given Gwen's wide-eyed, nearly terrified, "No, professor! This is too much, what are you—"

"Hellfire with that!" Lockhart roared, shaking her hands furiously. "You showed us a miracle back there, eh? So you deserve it, for making it to Vyzerworth!"

Gwen looked up. "No one else got money, did they?"

"Just take it. I know your family hardly gives you any money"—I must here note that Lockhart's excited tone did not fade when the young girl stopped looking him in the eye—"and it is a borderline sin to send off a poor soul to such a dangerous job without letting them misbehave first. Take the money, and I will hang you by your ankles if you dare to spend it on anything sensible!"

Here Lockhart attempted to add a smile on top of the smile he already wore on his face, resulting in the uncanny feeling his jawbones were attempting to flee his mouth. "So, ah, there's no need to blow our little duel out of proportion, yes? No need to mention my last attack to anybody outside the school?" With a wink and a whip of his head, Lockhart pulled his cap down his eyes and stalked away in an attempt at coolly withdrawing from the scene.

As an unbiased observer, I would like to offer the opinion that he failed miserably at that.

"Did anybody else see that?" Gwen asked aloud. She whirled round, plain incredulity on her face. "No, of course not. It's an empty hallway. Of course."

A long time ago, before I became whatever I happen to be now, having to carry a phenomenally foul smelling dirt-covered root in my Herbology class. Despite managing to(somehow) hold back my stomach, I still regarded the abomination as if it were a sort of poison, holding it as far from my body as I could while still entrusting it to my poor hands.

The reason I recount this story is because to me Gwen looked at the gold she held the same way I looked at that root. "I'll leave this school soon," she muttered to herself, and walked away.

You should now have the same vague notion of those students as I did back then, and of the uncertain feeling that roamed the once soothing Hogwarts hallways. It would not do to dwell further back there, for I believe the interest of anyone who stumbles upon this record is not about how these younglings lived, but rather how they killed. And for that, we must abandon the familiar grounds of Hogwarts we love so much and make our way to the mighty Vyzerworth gates.

Ah, those infernal gates! It was all anyone ever talked—and possibly all anyone ever knew—about Vyzerworth. Precious little of Vyzerworth itself was made known to anyone, and the castle itself was as much a mystery as Harry Potter himself. But I knew, from overhearing the ghost of a poor bastard who died there, that the closed gates were of heavy old oak and iron, untouched by rust. I also knew, from overhearing Hermione, Hogwarts' Headmaster, that the gate was just as tall as its walls, tall enough to hide all of the castle behind it except for its tallest red tower. I knew nothing of its location; it could be anywhere between nowhere and hell itself for all the little I knew. My memories of my time in Vyzerworth were surprisingly unhelpful there, muddled and twisted as they were.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when I saw the eight students being told to get into a train not entirely unlike our old Hogwarts Express.

It was a luxurious train filled to less than half its full capacity. Each wagon was decorated with the finest tapestry, the kind my mother would have demanded to have lest her die of shame, and was meant to be filled with no more than four people, as at some point a smart man had decided to promote wasteful use of space as a luxury rather than a reminder of our dwindling numbers.

Avan—who to the best of my knowledge never apologized for his outburst during the exam—took Gwen's hand to help her into the first wagon. "Careful now. Don't want you falling and breaking your nose just before Vyzerworth, eh?" He looked at the next wagon on the train. Hesitantly, he tried saying, "Elle, there's space for you over—"

It is still tough for me to decide whether Elle willfully disregarded what he said or if she was not paying any attention to him from the start. She sat beside Gwen and seemed to immediately become rather immersed in the bag of chips she was carrying.

"Us four here, then?" asked Rawley cheerfully. "I'll join you three, if you don't mind. I don't want to be with Clover if I can avoid." There were, of course, no objections against this. It was an old joke in Hogwarts that if Rawley ever came across a beast, he would convince them to join him for a cup of tea.

None of them looked out the window. All of their peers had come to bid them farewell, lined up before the great lake and watching the silver train expectantly. This curiosity cost them greatly, for Professor Neville seized the opportunity to subject them to one of his impromptu inspirational speeches he was so fond of. He always claimed to have wished somebody had given him the same euphoric words when he was younger, and nobody dared to argue him on this lest they accidentally extend the conversation.

The young professor stood atop the train, arms open wide as though addressing a church and smiling openly. His magically amplified voice begged those in attendance to never forget to be thankful for the sacrifices of our beast hunters, to never forget the manners we were taught in Hogwarts, and to perhaps hold a sword at anyone who ever did. This last point earned him a protest from Lockhart, but the man only shrugged. Most shockingly, Neville openly reminded us that Vyzerworth hunters have tragically short lives and to treasure the moments we have together.

Throughout all this, none of the four in that wagon said a word. Rawley had even raised a hand to his heart during all this out of respect. But Elle refused to let her mood dampen. "Vyzerworth, eh? Who would have thought we'd be going there?" Her try at modesty was appalling, but the attempt was appreciated enough. "So what's everybody's plan? Hunt down beasts until old age?"

"Old age?" Avan, it must be said, was normally quite skeptical, and he was also the kind to accentuate his feelings when nervous. "You heard Professor Longbottom. A third of hunters die before they're thirty, you think you're going to be any diff"—Avan noticed his mistake and expertly changed subjects to avoid a boast—"I think it's much more reasonable to hunt beasts for a couple years and retire. When you are twenty five, for example...that should be long enough to retire comfortably."

"That's why you're here? For money?"

"It is an honourable and efficient career path, one that will make my family proud," he replied pompously. With a touch of curiosity in his voice, he asked, "Do you have a different reason for being here?"

Tension had been rising in the wagon then, but it all disappeared once they heard Rawley's lazy, soothing voice. "Ah, I might as well answer that too, yeah? I don't have much family to miss me and someone out of take care of the beasts, yeah? Could be that I'm crazy, but I just figured…well, why not me? I'm talented enough."

"I wasn't going to answer myself," Elle said, jokingly glaring at Rawley. "But if you insist on being honest…I decided to be in Vyzerworth the moment I found out I was a witch because it seemed impossible, and therefore a good goal to shoot for."

Rawley's hand shot up in curiosity. "Hang on a moment—when you _found out_ you were a witch? You're Muggleborn, then? You're from Australia?"

"No, genius, I'm from one of the clandestine Muggle settlements and managed to somehow be invited into Hogwarts. Of course I'm from Australia!" There was less bite and more of a delighted amusement in her voice. "I remember telling the Detector I was a witch before it was my turn back then."

Avan leaned forward. "How did you know that? Did you already know any magic then?"

"Not even a little. I just decided that I was going to be a witch and destiny happened to not make me look very silly." At this, they all started to laugh. I might even have laughed a little myself. "My town was fairly small, and as luck would have it I was the only Muggleborn there. When I got to Hogwarts I just never admitted to not knowing anything and nobody questioned me much."

Avan nodded once, then turned his head to Gwen. "What about you? You just went crazy about Vyzerworth around the end of your fifth year...and you never told me why. Come on old friend, we're going to the bloody castle already, you can trust me now." The other two followed suit and turned to face her as well.

To me, it seemed as though the tiny girl had shrunk even more under all their stares. Yet her voice remained composed and she did not shake as she would have in the past. "There is something I've been very curious about for a couple years now."

Elle looked straight into her eyes. "Something, now? What? A beast? A weapon? A wand?"

"Someone," she conceded. Her voice ended in an expectant note, but realizing this was not enough to satisfy their curiosity, she said, " _Harry Potter._ " Gwen matched Elle's stare until the girl gave up on this line of questioning

"Ah," said Elle. "Our dear now-Headmaster, eh? He seems like a mystery all right."

Rawley stretched his arms upwards lazily. "Does anyone even know anything about the man? From what I heard, he hasn't made any public appearances since he created Vyzerworth."

"Since he found the uses of beast blood," Avan corrected him. "Vyzerworth was already half-myth by the time it was created. Nobody not directly involved with it is allowed to even set foot in the place."

"And that's the same Vyzerworth we're going to right now," Elle said, a childlike wonder in her voice as she rushed to the window for the first time. "And we're ready for anything it can throw at us!"

She was not ready for what she saw out of the window.

Elle leaped back from the window in a hurry, nearly tripping over herself before Gwen caught her arm and held her in place. "What is wrong with—" Avan started, before following the woman's index finger to the window. To the clouds outside.

After a moment of wonder, Rawley managed a weak, "Why on earth would you make a train _fly?_ There has got to be a better vehicle for that."

The nervous laughter this elicited went on for nearly a minute afterwards. The group kept its laughter for longer than it meant to, like an unsavory host who insists you stay for dessert. None wanted the laughter to escape, for they feared the silence that would replace it. In desperation, soon as the last laugh died down, Elle said, "Have any of you decided what kind of hunter you will be?"

"I don't even need to ask what you are going to be," said Gwen. "I can't see you as anything other than a duelist."

Elle grinned. "What can I say? I'm a fencer at heart. Human-like beasts are my favorite…besides, a transfigured blade makes a clean exit and can be turned back into a cane without getting blood on me. The cleanup is much easier than with a weirder weapon."

"Wilders don't have weird weapons," Avan protested. "They are just…large. You need those to fight beasts the size of dragons. You can't just use a bloody epee to stab a giant wolf to death!"

"Maybe you can't."

Avan went on as if he didn't hear her. "Now, it's true that with something like a giant barbed whip or an enchanted saw you're more likely to get blood on you, but…well, sometimes that's what it takes to take down the big beasts. There are ways to get the blood off you before it does any lasting damage too, so…it shouldn't be a concern."

"And it pays better," Elle said thoughtfully. "Which I'm sure did not influence your decision at all."

Rawley coughed loudly to deny Avan the chance of a comeback, and continued to do so until all attention was on him in a very transparent manner. "I'm a simple man, I'll stick with wands. The way I see it, we were taught magic for seven years in Hogwarts. It just seems like it's a good idea to stick with what you know best to hunt those things, yeah?"

"Spells can't usually get through their though their skin though," Gwen noted. "They are like eyeless dragons as far as spells are concerned, that's not going to be easy."

"That's part of what Vyzerworth is all about though, isn't it? Besides…" Rawley shrugged. "Let me be a fair, and open coward here—if those things touch you, you're dead. If their _blood_ touches you, you're worse than dead. Is it so weird to want to attack them from a safe distance?"

"You're not really saying that! If you wanted to stay at a safe distance—" Elle pointed at the back of the wagon. "Hogwarts is that way!" She paused, then added hesitantly, "I think so, at least. We have been turning for a while. I can't tell where we are." Elle whirled round and pointed at Gwen. "What about you? What kind of hunter do you want to be?"

"I have a couple things I'm curious about, so I need to become the best hunter I can in the shortest period of time possible."

"That's not an answer, my dear."

Gwen looked Elle in the eye. "I will become a duelist."

"Oh? But I thought you meant to rise quickly through our dear rankings. You mean you'll rise over me?"

"Yes."

Elle had asked the question teasingly, but Gwen answered it in the utmost seriousness. Upon noticing this, Elle smiled like she hadn't in years. "You're a better fencer than me, Elle. I acknowledge that. For now."

"For now," Elle repeated. "I'll look forward to it, Gwen." Tension lasted only a second before the two embraced in a friendly hug.

This banter continued, in one fashion or another, for the remaining of the trip. Nervousness fell and rose like a pendulum, insults were hurled like tennis balls, and everyone could not stop wondering why Gwen was so interested in Harry Potter. Now, I cannot profess to read minds—not at this point anyhow—so perhaps I'm overstepping my boundaries by claiming so. Yet, every once in a while I would catch each of them regarding Gwen with the same eyes, the same expression that said "What are you _really_ up to?"

It is, in fact, my belief that Elle was about to give up on subtlety and ask the question point blank when they were interrupted by the wondrous Vyzerworth Gates.

Fire had once swallowed the oak gates during a siege, but beasts still could not bring it down. Those old gates stood as still and firm now as they did in my oldest memory, and even back _then_ I was assured that the walls had not changed a day since their inception. All of their attention seemed centred on the pair of giant double gate doors ahead, guarded by two equally gargantuan statues of beasts floating aside from them.

"The train is speeding up…" Gwen said slowly. "But the gates aren't opening. We are going to—"

Even in whatever state I am in now, I still felt the same fear I did back when I was their age. I found myself shielding my face with my arms—it shocked me to remember I had arms—right before the imminent crash that never came. The flying train passed through the gates as though it wasn't there and did not slow down.

The four nearly fought for a spot near the window, seemingly forgetting the other windows around the cabin. "That's a mountain!" Avan stuck his head outside the window. "This is way too hot!" He pulled himself back into the cabin, squeezed his eyes, then frowned. "No…that's not a mountain."

"It's a volcano," said Elle, eyes wide.

Their eyes could still see the volcano when they felt a threat of snow in the air. Unbearable heat turned into freezing cold, and suddenly they were flying over a field of unbroken snow. A moment later, snowflakes turned to water, and furious winds shook the train. Lightning colored the sky and thunder punctuated it—for nearly a minute before it all faded and the train slowed down all the way into a halt.

"What on earth was that?" Rawley asked, voice trembling slightly.

But I have a feeling that deep down they already knew the answer to that question.

Thunderous claps from outside the train brought them back to the window. An eerie mirror of their Hogwarts farewell stood there, a number of teachers and students standing by an archway, red tower behind them, dressed in an uniform bearing an unmistakable symbol. In the centre of all those people stood a seemingly elderly man, sitting in a wheelchair.

With what seemed like a monumental effort, the old man stood from his wheelchair, placing all of his weight onto those fragile wooden prosthetics he was always insistent on wearing. He was smiling at us all, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all volunteering to die.

"Welcome!" said Harry Potter "Welcome to the Flying Castle of Vyzerworth!"


End file.
